Drew Bannister signed a two-year contract Tuesday to remain coach of the St. Louis Blues.
The 50-year-old went 30-19-5 as interim coach after replacing Craig Berube, who was fired Dec. 14, 2023.
St. Louis finished 43-33-6 but missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second straight season.
“I talked to Drew in the last week or so and told him that he’s going to be a candidate for the head coaching job,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said April 18. “I feel that for the process it’s necessary to interview a few people, but what I told him is when we made the coaching change, I was creating a list and the list was deep and extensive and as I watched him perform and I watched our team perform, I started to cross names off that list, and now Drew is one of a very small number of people I want to talk to moving forward.
The Blues are Bannister’s first head coaching job in the NHL. He was 93-58-19 for Springfield of the American Hockey League, guiding it to consecutive Calder Cup Playoff appearances, including the 2022 Calder Cup Final. He played 164 NHL regular-season games from 1995 to 2001 for the Tampa Bay Lightning, Edmonton Oilers, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and New York Rangers.
A defenseman, Bannister was selected by the Lightning in the second round (No. 26) of the 1992 NHL Draft.
“I thought he did a very good job,” Armstrong said. “I thought he was able to put a balance of pushing and prodding to get the best team on the ice every night with throwing a little bit of hope out there and a blind eye to putting young players in situations they haven’t been in and living with the results. I think that’s how you grow.”
Three teams are without a coach: the San Jose Sharks, Seattle Kraken and Winnipeg Jets. Jim Hiller is interim coach of the Los Angeles Kings.
NHL.com independent correspondent Lou Korac contributed to this report
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